Russians Are Collecting Used Czars

Christie's is leading its Russian sales with Nicholas Roerich's sea-green panorama, 'Legend, from the series Messiah,' priced to sell for at least $1.1 million.
Christie's

By

Kelly Crow

Updated Dec. 4, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

Russian oligarchs and bigwigs who buoyed, then fled, the local art market, are gingerly stepping back in. But rather than embracing the latest contemporary artists, they're chasing the collections of an earlier elite class—before the Revolution.

London's chief auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's International plan to sell at least $36 million worth of Russian art, including a rediscovered trove of Fabergé cigarette cases owned by the younger son of Czar Alexander II. The series of sales, called Russia Week, begins Monday.

Like many collecting categories, the Russian art market was gutted by the recession, but price levels for top artists like Ilya Repin have begun to stabilize, in part because of a fresh influx of Russian and Ukrainian buyers from banking and political circles. Repin was a Ukrainian who became Russia's leading late 19th-century realist. Newcomers include Alina Aivazova, the wife of Kiev's mayor Leonid Kosmos Chernovetsky, who in June paid boutique auctioneer MacDougall's a record $2.3 million for Repin's "Portrait of Madame Alisa Rivoir with a Lapdog."

A gold and enamel box worked by Michael Perchin, St. Petersburg, 1896. The Czar's Collections Sotheby's

Sotheby's says at least 38% of the buyers at its June round of London art sales were new to its Russian department. Nearly a quarter of the buyers were newcomers to the auction house altogether—a signal that Eastern Europeans may be investing more cash in hard assets like art.

From Moscow to Kiev to Kazakh expatriates living in London, demand is growing once more for Russian silver, gilded porcelain vases and 19th-century paintings of Cossack soldiers and peasant women in colorful head scarves. Less popular now are those contemporary stars who enjoyed huge price jumps during the market's peak like Ilya Kabakov, whose 1982 painting of an insect, "Beetle," sold for a record $5.8 million at Phillips de Pury in 2008. Kabakov is missing from this latest round, and auction houses have tailored the latest offerings to suit traditional tastes.

Sotheby's scored a coup when it consigned a group of Romanov heirlooms owned by the emperor's son Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and his wife, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. The couple, known for throwing lavish parties and outfitting their rooms in Ottoman décor, reigned over St. Petersburg society until the 1918 Russian Revolution compelled the duchess, by then a widow, to flee to Paris. At her request, a friend stuffed the couple's collection of cigarette cases and cuff links into a pair of pillowcases and dropped the bags off at the Swedish Legation in St. Petersburg. The duchess died before ever claiming the goods, which wound up languishing at the Swedish Foreign Office in Stockholm until being rediscovered in January.

Now, the couple's heirs are selling off the pieces, including 66 pairs of cuff links and 51 cigarette and cigar cases, along with the pillowcases for around $1.5 million combined. The pillowcases are priced around $330 apiece. A green Fabergé case given to the couple by their nephew, Czar Nicholas II, is estimated to sell for at least $117,000. (The case contains a handwritten note from the ruler identifying himself as "Nicky.")

Sotheby's Monday-evening sale of Russian paintings includes Alexandra Exter's "Venice," a colorful collage reminiscent of Fernand Léger and priced to sell for at least $1.4 million. A Repin portrait of a bandaged soldier, "Cossack," carries a $955,000 low estimate. Overall, Sotheby's expects to bring in at least $24.6 million from its Russian art sales.

ENLARGE

A large porcelain vase, St. Petersburg, 1854.
Christie's

Christie's, meanwhile, expects to bring in at least $11.5 million from its Russian sales, led by Nicholas Roerich's sea-green panorama, "Legend, from the series Messiah," which is priced to sell for at least $1.1 million. That's a respectable price tag considering that Christie's sold a similar Roerich for $2.9 million earlier this spring when the economic picture was gloomier. Alexandre Iacovleff's 1918 view of a Chinese theater crowd, "Loge de Theatre a Pekin," carries a $1.1 million low estimate.

Within the decorative arts, Christie's is offering a large two-handled porcelain vase made in Czar Nicholas I's Imperial Porcelain Factory for at least $230,000. Christie's international director of Russian art, Alexis de Tiesenhausen, says newer collectors typically anchor their Russian porcelain collection with pieces made during the mid-1800s when the royal porcelain factories were producing at peak levels of gilded craftsmanship.

"Russian collectors have grown bored of the crisis," Mr. Tiesenhausen said. "We lost a few clients, but others have finally arrived."

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